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Na­tion­al Un­der-17 foot­ball coach Shawn Coop­er is in the po­si­tion he once en­vi­sioned when he and his charges left for Cos­ta Ri­ca to con­test Group B of the Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 World Cup Qual­i­fiers some two weeks ago—his team must beat host Cos­ta Ri­ca to ad­vance.

Coop­er’s en­tire plan had been mapped out that way, as he told the me­dia it would be a bat­tle be­tween his charges and the Cos­ta Ri­cans for the top spot.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, Guyana cre­at­ed two up­sets that even­tu­al­ly bal­anced off in the end, draw­ing with T&T on Feb­ru­ary 7, and against Cos­ta Ri­ca on Feb­ru­ary 13 in San Jose, which left both the ju­nior So­ca War­riors and the Cos­ta Ri­cans in po­si­tions two and one, re­spec­tive­ly, on sev­en points af­ter three match­es with Los Ticos in pole po­si­tion on goal dif­fer­ence.